System Deployment Image: Difference between revisions

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{{Multiple issues|confusing=August 2008{{update|unreferenceddate=AugustSeptember 20082014}}

{{More citations needed|date=August 2008}}

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A '''System Deployment Image''' (aka '''SDI''') is a file format used primarily with [[Microsoft]] products to contain an arbitrary [[disk image]], including boot sector information.

== Description ==

The System Deployment Image (SDI) file format is often used to allow the use of a virtual disk viafor startup or mountingbooting. Some versions of [[Microsoft Windows]] allow for "RAM [[booting]]", which is essentially the ability to load an SDI file into memory and then boot from it. The SDI file format also lends itself to network booting using the [[Preboot Execution Environment]] (PXE). Another usage is [[Hard disk drive|hard disk]] [[Disk image|imaging]].

The SDI file itself is partitioned into the following sections:

; Boot [[Binary large object|BLOB]] : This contains the actual boot program, STARTROM.COM. This is analogous to the boot sector of a hard disk.

; Load BLOB : This typically contains [[NTLDR]] and is launched by the boot BLOB.

; Part BLOB : This contains the actual boot runtime (i.e. the contents of the disk image including any Operating System [OS] files) and also includes the [[boot.ini]] (used by NTLDR) and ntdetect.com files which should be located within the root directory of the runtime. The size of the runtime cannot exceed 500 MbMB. In addition to this requirement the runtime must also be capable of dealing with the fact that it is booting from a ramdisk. This implies that the runtime must include the "Windows [[RAM Disk]] Driver" component (specified within the boot.ini).

; Disk BLOB : This is flat [[Hard disk drive|HDD]] image starting with a [[Master boot record|MBR]]. It is used for hard drive imaging instead of booting. Also only Disk BLOBs can be mounted with Microsoft's utilities.

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SDI usually contains either Disk BLOB (HD cloning or temporary SDI) or three other of them (bootable SDI).

[[Windows Vista]] or [[Windows Preinstallation Environment|Windows PE]] 2.0 boot sequence includes a boot.sdi file, which contains Part BLOB for an empty [[NTFS]] volume and a Table-of-Contents slot for the [[Windows Imaging Format|WIM]] image, which is stored actually not inside the SDI, buton ina separate on-disk file.

== SDI features ==

=== SDI driver ===

SDI files can be mounted as virtual disk drives and assigned a drive letter if an SDI driver is available to allow this. A SDI driver is a type of storage driver and is commonly used with [[Windows_XP_editionsWindows XP editions#Embedded_editionsEmbedded editions|Windows XP Embedded]].

=== SDI management ===

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| author = Saad Syed

| publisher = Microsoft

| date = November 2002-11

| url = http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838543.aspx#ram_sdi_topic1

| accessdate = 2008-08-31}}